Saturday, April 28, 2012

Rhea's Defective Internal Jukebox: Whitesnake, "Forevermore"

Rhea, last night, after listening to Eddie Trunk’s Friday Night Rocks in the car for a
while: “He played the new Whitesnake. [Long
pause.] I think I liked it. I’m so ashamed.” First, I did what any fine upstanding music
snob with several gigs of Hüsker Dü bootlegs on his hard drive would: laughed
and mocked. Then, I did what any fine
upstanding human being who wants to keep his long-term relationship on track
and not have it bog down over stupid things like hair metal would do and told
her to go forth and enjoy. If it makes her happy, it's more than alright with me.
Snobbery’s a laugh, but fun is fun
– and love conquers all. I believe that
with all my heart and soul, and I’ll swear to you on every last megabyte of
those Hüsker bütlegs that it’s true.

Still, I was curious: Whitesnake? Honestly, they’re not a band I’ve ever heard
Rhea wax nostalgic for, nor have I ever seen any evidence of fandom in her
music collection. Rhea’s not one to ever
be guilty about her musical pleasures, either; honestly, I’ve learned much from
her over the years in that regard. I spent most of this
morning and afternoon curious; by the evening, said curiosity was killing this
cat and I took the bait and gave the damned thing a listen.

The first thing you should know about Forevermore (actually released about a year or so ago) is that it is not much concerned with the present. The album’s overall production has a
compressed, modern feel (guess even old farts want to be loud on your iPod, and
why not?), and singer/mainstay David Coverdale’s voice is audibly more than two
decades older than it was back when he drove around Los Angeles with Tawny
Kitaen on the hood of his car every five minutes on MTV. Those two things are Forevermore's only brush with modernity; otherwise, just throw this
baby on and it’s never not been 1987. And
you know what? I think I like it that way,
at least where this silly record is concerned.

Let’s pause this review here a moment, and send a quick tip
of the hat to rock bands of all subgenres who’ve been wise enough to stick to
their guns over the years. Let us hereby
acknowledge all the pop-metal bands who never went grunge, all the grunge bands
that never went pop-punk, all the pop-punk bands that never went ska, all the
ska bands that never went swing-revival, all the swing-revival bands that never
went emo, all the emo bands who got away without standing in a circle around
their Morrissey records and slashing their wrists simultaneously, and so on and
so forth ad infinitum. The
never-ending continuum of rock ‘n’ roll fads is always a thing to behold.

In that spirit, Forevermore
is an apt title for this album. If you
loved ‘em way back when, there’s a good chance you’ll at least strongly like ‘em
now. I’ll give David Coverdale this: it
would seem that he’s aware that there is no real way for a band named after his
penis to truly mature, and thus he wastes no time even trying. To hell with the here and now, folks, and
welcome back the old gang intact: wanky guitar solos. Obvious, endlessly chorus-repeated hooks a
mile wide. Coverdale’s dime-store Robert
Plant imitation. All present and accounted
for, and all still treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry. As snide as I’m being (for that is my job as
a music blogger after all), it’s all very impressive in its way; in fact, it’s
almost enough to make you believe that the Sunset Strip is still buzzing with
motor-sikkles (because, in this context, it’s gotta be pronounced just like
Vince Neil says it) and drenched in Aqua-Net.
The good old days are never really all the way gone, are they? I suppose not, and I suppose that’s not
entirely a bad thing either. Granted,
this isn’t exactly the style of late-‘80s music that I’m personally most
nostalgic for, but that’s mostly splitting teased hairs. If the very idea of a recent Whitesnake album
sounds like it might be your idea of fun, Forevermore
delivers on that idea. What more could you
possibly ask of it?

One last thing, while we’re on the topic of nostalgia: the CD
I downloaded bought from a magical, time-travelling, never bankrupted Tower
Records that only I know how to get to has three extra songs. Ah, extra songs on a limited edition, just
like the good old days. Makes the heart of
this old record collector swoon, I tellya.
Just to bring the nostalgia all the way home, all three of ‘em suck –
right, also just like in the good old days.
To be specific, all three are pointless remixes of songs already on the
album proper; unnecessary filler down to the last millisecond. Do you know what’s truly better now than back
in the good old days? Select files and
drag > Drop in the RECYCLE BIN > Gone, ahem, forevermore. I don’t even
have to be bothered holding my nose up in the air while pointedly NOT (harrumph!)
including them on a dubbed cassette copy for my Walkman anymore. Seriously: how sweet is the magical future in
which we currently reside?